“You have some plans?” he asked.
Wyllard admitted that this was the case, and Overweg smiled behind his spectacles.
“It is, perhaps, better that you should not tell me what they are,” he said. “There is, however, one thing I can do. You say you left some stores you could not carry at the depôt, which I will take, for provisions are now not plentiful with me, but at my base camp there are still a few things you have not which are almost necessary, and”—he made a gesture of reassuring significance—“after all, if I have to go south a little earlier than I intended it is not a great matter.”
He wrote on a strip of paper which he handed to Wyllard. “You will take these, and nothing else. I may add that Smirnoff is stationed at the inlet where the schooner lies.”
Wyllard thanked him, and then looked him in the eyes. “There is a long journey before us, and you have only my word that I will take nothing but these things.”
Overweg nodded quietly. “Yes,” he said, “it is perhaps permissible to assure you that it is sufficient for me.”
Little more was said, and in another half-hour Wyllard and his companions were ready to set out. He and the little spectacled scientist grasped each other’s hands, and then Wyllard abruptly turned away. Looking back a few minutes later, he saw Overweg standing upon the ridge where he had left him, silhouetted against a low, gray sky. The scientist raised his cap once, and Wyllard, who answered him, swung around once more, and strode faster towards the south.